Getting the chemistry right

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29/05/2012

There are lots of exciting things happening within OCR to support the teaching of chemistry this spring.

Did you know today sees the launch of a new online five-stage task for chemistry students, of any age, from anywhere in the world? Part of the successful Cambridge Chemistry Challenge project, and sponsored by OCR, the Challenge is the brainchild of Dr Peter Wothers of the University’s Chemistry department. In June, there’s an additional written test for Year 12 students in UK schools, useful for anyone considering chemistry at university. Visit the Challenge website and see if one of your students is among the first to complete all five stages of May’s task.

To build teachers’ confidence in performing chemistry experiments, we’ve put a selection of clips recorded live at the Association for Science Education’s conference on our website. If you would like some ideas of ways to bring GCSE chemistry topics to life in your classroom, take a look at our highlights of Professor Sosabowski’s Big Bang show.

We are also delighted to announce the winner of our International Year of Chemistry competition. Congratulations go to Andrew Wilkins, science lecturer at New College, Swindon, who created a video resource which helps to explain the meanings of atomic orbital, shell and subshell terminology and how electronic configurations for atoms and ions are worked out. The video is used for revision and independent study by students at the College. You can access Andrew's video through OCR’s community website.

This is just a snapshot of our activities. We’ve got some excellent CPD events for chemistry and all the sciences in the next few months too.